Grand jury's decision doesn't justify the use of excessive force.

Updated 10:47 pm, Thursday, March 13, 2014

A bicyclist takes a leisurely ride along Main Street near Rice University.

A bicyclist takes a leisurely ride along Main Street near Rice University.

Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle

Restraint, please, at Rice

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The camera doesn't lie.

And the truth, as shown on a police dashboard cam, was last summer's unmerciful and savage beating of a bicycle thief by two Rice University Police Department officers. Their actions were excessive, unnecessary and an example of emotion overriding good sense.

That a hand-picked Harris County grand jury chose to no bill the officers responsible came as no surprise. Law enforcement in the Houston area seemingly operates with impunity. Shoot a suspect in Houston? As this newspaper has repeatedly reported: no problem and no bill. Use your Taser? Ditto. Nightstick? A-OK.

The difference this time is that the perpetrators were employees of Rice, the most prestigious academic institution in Texas and a place that should know the difference between excessive and proper policing. In addition to that failure, however, the school's reaction to the attack by its employees has been uncharacteristic and, frankly, unexplainable.

Rather than being transparent about the actions of its state-licensed police force, Rice relied on its status as a private institution to try to prevent the public from knowing details of the event. The video of what appears to be more than 30 strikes with old-fashioned nightsticks came to light only after a KPRC-TV investigation, and Rice refused to comply with requests for information made under the Texas Public Information Act.

State Sen. John Whitmire, one of Texas' leading experts in criminal justice matters, after seeing the video, promised greater oversight of state-licensed police forces at private institutions. "If they think they don't take taxpayer money: One, watch what I do to their budget," he said late last year. "And two, watch what I do to their police department."

The senator remains angry. "I plan to have that video reviewed by another agency, the U.S. attorney," he said this week. "I am not going away."

We're pleased he's following through.

No one is saying Rice shouldn't have security and protect its students. But an institution that doesn't understand why you don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito should not have gun-carrying employees, and they shouldn't be able to exercise authority outside of their campus.

There are children riding bikes throughout the ethnically diverse neighborhoods that surround Rice. Their parents shouldn't have to worry that a bicycle trip to the campus might result in mistaken arrest that comes with a caught-on-tape beating at the hands of RUPD.